Winter Sledding Fun

This winter has been MILD. Only ONE decent snow! Last year we had 6 missed school days and went through several bags of ice melting salt. This year, not one missed day! BUT, regarding the learning curve required for southerners to thrive in the cold, we have acquired some QUALITY sleds this year. Well, they were cheap at Walmart, but compared to the ones we bought last year, they are rockin'. Big enough for 2 kids, or kid + parent!

At the girls' elementary is an EXCELLENT sledding hill... I have some cute videos as well but all my recent attempts to upload have failed. But you can imagine... What goes up, comes down face-first, on your back, on your hiney, with a smile or a frown.

Christmas 2011 in Pics

Thanks for your prayers for me in China. I'll have to write about that in another post! I returned on the 18th, and unfortunately brought some nasty version of the flu home with me. I was pretty darn sick for about a week. But if you have to be sick, it was a good time to be, because there was a lot of help around!

We spent Christmas 2011 in our friends' lakehouse in on Lake Kiowa. Thanks so much, McCann's, for your generosity! With most of our family in Texas, it was a great location to invite everyone to come too. We were with my parents, Jim's parents, my brother Aaron and his wife Kristen, Aubrey and Taylor; my sister Jennifer, Tim, Ethan and Elise. We missed Meme & Papa, the Lamottas, the Bishops, and the Dingo's!






















































Uncle Tim...














Cousin Elise always has such expressive faces!



















No matter what's in the box, it's cool to have all your cousins gawking














Ellie & Nana



















Ellie and Elise



















Ellie and Ethan






































Dancing fun with Elise






































Aunt Jennifer, GG



















Our advent wreath



















We love GG & Da!



















Kathryn & baby cousin Taylor



















Ellie & Taylor



















Kathryn & Aubrey



















Aubrey & Nana



















Ellie & Aubrey



















baby Taylor's 1st Christmas!



















Aunt Kristen, Aubrey, Taylor, Kathryn















































Good lookin' couple!













Cousin fun...




























































































Wallace fam pic














Happy Birthday Nana on the 28th



























my brother Aaron and Taylor














cousin pic!



















so kissable!














gorgeous sunrises!












Yes, 70 degrees and sunny! Awesome!

Yes, I know the blog has been sorely neglected this semester!

My semester is winding to a close. Would you pray for me? And Jim and the girls while I'm away? I leave this coming Friday for a counseling opportunity in China. I've had to finish the semester about 10 days early, which means the last few weeks have been pretty stressful, but I turned in my term paper on Friday and finished my exam tonight! Yeah! My term paper was actually very formative for me as a counselor and I'm thankful to my prof who allowed me to tweak it for my own interest and growth. Now just three more days of clients, winding up lose ends, and I'm off!

Can I sing the praises of my sweet husband for a moment? He took the girls to Aunt Julie's today and cleared the whole day for me so I could finish my exam. And he encouraged me to go on this trip, and has paved the way for me to take advantage of this great opportunity. I feel the love, hon.

I leave you with a quote, thinking about leading others as one being led.

"Paul calls leaders not merely to be humble and self-effacing but to be desperate and honest. It is not enough to be self-revealing, authentic, and transparent. Our calling goes far beyond that. We are called to be reluctant, limping, chief-sinner leaders, and even more, to be stories. The word that Paul uses is that a leader is to be an ‘example,’ but what that implies is more than a figure on a flannel board. He calls us to be a living portrayal of the very gospel we beseech others to believe. And that requires a leader to see himself as being equally prone to deceive as he is to tell the truth, to manipulate as he is to bless, to cower as he is to be bold. A leader is both a hero and a fool, a saint and a felon.

We are both and to pretend otherwise is to be disingenuous. The leader who fails to face [his] darkness must live with fear and hypocrisy. The result will be a defensiveness that places saving face and controlling others as higher goods than blessing others and doing good work. Clearly, the biblical model of leadership is odd, inverted, and deeply troubling. It is so troubling that most churches, seminaries, and other religious organizations would never hire a ‘chief sinner.’ The only one who thinks to do so is God." --Dan Allender, Leading With a Limp

Beautiful Fall

Last weekend, my sweet friend April from Dallas came to visit! Though she was a Ranger fan in the land of Cardinal's on the historic weekend, she managed not to get trampled. On Friday, the day of game 7, we went downtown and toured the arch and witnessed the mayhem surrounding the Cardinal's stadium: the fountains died red, the campers on the lawn, the crowds with signs "I have tickets!"; "I need tickets"...

But on Saturday we took a little day trip to Pere Marquette State Park, near Grafton, IL, along "Three River Drive" where the Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois rivers merge. It was gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! Here are some tastes of the beauty of Saint Louis Fall at the height of color!






















































































































































































Thanks my friend for coming to spend the weekend with me! And thanks to her hubby Britt who surprised her and made it happen! (And my hubby too who released me to play for the weekend! :)